1999-12-14 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- Four months of finger- pointing, chest-beating and other election shenanigans will come to a welcome end today as San Francisco voters finally decide who they want as their next mayor and district attorney.

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"The supporters of that other guy (Ammiano) are absolutely going to show up at the polls; it's a religion with them," Brown told hundreds of campaign workers in a fire-them-up speech at his headquarters Saturday. "So we have to get our people out there to vote."

It looks like San Francisco voters won't need too much encouragement. Naomi Nishioka, head of the city's Department of Elections, is predicting a 50 percent turnout today, well ahead of the 45 percent who voted in the November 2 general election. More than 60,000 absentee ballots already have been turned in, compared with slightly more than 52,000 last month.

A voter registration drive by Ammiano's supporters also helped add about 14,000 new voters to the rolls, bringing the registration total for today's election to 467,295.

The weather is expected to cooperate with the get-out-the-vote effort. The forecast is sunny skies with the temperature in the 50s.

For Brown and Fazio, a big turnout could be the key to victory. While both are leading in the latest polls, a disappointing showing from some of their neighborhood strongholds probably cost them votes in the general election.

A heavy turnout is especially important for Brown. He is trying to attract conservative voters who normally would not have anything to do with the mayor.

For decades, Brown was a national poster child for liberal causes. But everything has changed this year. Ammiano, president of the Board of Supervisors, is running well to the left of Brown on things like economic development, tenants' rights and business issues.

For his part, the mayor won the endorsement of the local Republican Party and the business community, which in turn have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help Brown get re-elected.

While the endorsements are nice, it takes votes to win and many of the city's most conservative areas have been chilly to Brown in the past. That is why the mayor has virtually taken up residence in neighborhoods like the Sunset, Richmond and West of Twin Peaks, directing his message to the homeowners who have been less than enthusiastic about his four years as mayor, but who may be even more worried about Ammiano as mayor.

Ammiano's targets are the renters who make up about two-thirds of San Francisco's residents. With an unbroken record of support for tough rent-control laws, a higher minimum wage and a variety of progressive causes, the supervisor hopes to attract voters who in the past have ignored the political process.

It worked last month, when Ammiano put together a grassroots write-in campaign that vaulted him to a surprisingly strong second-place finish in the general election and a spot in today's runoff. The supervisor is convinced that his backers have been invisible to the pollsters and will show up in force at the voting booths.

"We are on fire," Ammiano told campaign workers at his Mission Street headquarters Saturday. "We're going to make history Tuesday."

The district attorney's race is a rerun of the 1995 contest, when Hallinan narrowly defeated Fazio, 52 percent to 48 percent. After four years in office, Hallinan beat Fazio by only about 1,300 votes last month, and polls have given the challenger a growing lead in a race that has degenerated into a mudslinging contest.

One thing voters can look forward to today is an election that will be completed in less than three days. That's how long it took last month before Ammiano could claim the runner-up spot in the race.

Without the 49,000 write-in votes cast for Ammiano in November, the count should move more smoothly, said Foster Tucker, a spokesman for the Department of Elections.

"We always expect the best and prepare for the worst, but it should be much easier this time," he said.

The thousands of absentee votes should be counted and released to the public a half hour after the polls close, he said, and results from the city's 645 precincts should start coming in soon after that.

The polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. People with questions about their polling place or other election issues can call the Department of Elections at (415) 554-4375.